fns 
.P5-? 



« 
^Kejtfinted from Thf. American Historical Review, Vol. XIV., No. 3, April, 1909.] 



THE SOUTH CAROLINA FEDERALISTS, I. 

Original material for Southern history has been so scarce at 
the centres where American historiographers have worked, that the 
general writers have had to substitute conjecture for understanding 
in many cases when attempting to interpret Southern developments. 
The Federalists of the South have suffered particularly from mis- 
representation and neglect. Their Democratic-Republican contcm-' 
poraries of course abused them ; the American public at large in the 
following generation was scandalized by the course of the New 
England Federalists, and placed a stigma upon all who bore or 
had borne the name of Federalists anywhere; no historical mono- 
graphs have made the pertinent data available ; and the standard 
historians, with the exception of Henry Adams, who has indicated 
a sound interpretation in the form of conjecture but who has given 
no data, have failed to handle the theme with any approach to 
adequacy. The South Carolina group appears to have been typical 
of the whole Southern wing of the Federalists ; and because of the 
greater fullness of the extant documents and the more apparent 
unity of the theme, the present essay will treat of the origin, char- 
acter and early career of the party in the state where it was most 
prominent, rather than in the Southern region at large. 

South Carolina has always been in large degree a community 
apart from the rest of the United States. The long isolation of 
the colony upon an exposed frontier, and the centralization of com- 
mercial, social and political life by reason of the great importance 
of the city of Charleston, had given the commonwealth a remark- 
able sentiment of compactness and self-reliance. In the whole 
period from the Revolution to the Civil War the tendency of public 
opinion generally prevailing was to regard the membership of their 
state in the Federal Union as merely providing a more or less 
intimate alliance of the states, as mutual convenience might require. 
The stress of somewhat abnormal conditions, however, led many 
prominent men in the state to favor strong powers for the federal 
government throughout the period from 1786 to the time of the 
" second war for American independence ", in 1812-1815. 

In the internal politics of South Carolina, an aristocracy com- 
posed of the planters and the leading Charleston merchants was 
;' .-, (529) 



530 U. B. Phillips 

generally in control of the state government, but was in chronic 
dread of defeat at the ballot-boxes. In the opposition there was a 
body of clerks, artisans and other white laborers in Charleston, 
much inclined at times to assert democratic doctrine, and there was 
a large population of farmers in the distant uplands, non-slavehold- 
ing in the eighteenth century, disposed to co-operate with the sub- 
merged Charleston democracy on occasion, but rendered partly 
helpless by a lack of leaders and organization. The control by the 
planters, furthermore, was safeguarded by a constitutional gerry- 
mander which gave their districts (the lowlands) a more tlian pro- 
portionate representation in the legislature ; and this advantage 
was jealously guarded by the planters, who feared unsympathetic 
administration, if no worse, by the democracy. The planters were 
large producers on a capitalistic basis, analogous to factory owners 
of more recent times, and often they operated on credit. They 
were generally disposed to be conservative in business, anxious 
to keep their credit good and to maintain friendly relations with 
the commercial powers.^ In addition, these men, who were resi- 
dents among and rulers of a dense negro population, could not afford 
to accept and propagate such socially disturbing ideas as the doctrine 
of the inherent freedom and equality of men. The danger of 
fomenting servile discontent was too great. 

In most of its problems except where the negroes were concerned 
the South Carolina ruling class found its interests to be harmonious 
with those of the Northern sea-board; and the problems of negroes 
and slavery furnished no overt issues in that period which could 
^' not be speedily patched up. The more obvious problems before 

the whole country were such as to promote little antagonism between 
North and South. All states and sections had similar tasks of 
rehabilitation after the war, similar needs of establishing an effective 
central government, similar difficulties of finance and commerce, 
similar danger from the French agitation in the Genet period, 
similar problems in general of maintaining a suitable equilibrium 
between social compactness and personal liberty and between na- 
tional unity and local self-government. In nearly all the ques- 

' The importance of commercial relations to the plantation interests may be 
gathered from the statistics of exports. For example, in 1791 the exports of 
South Carolina were valued at 2.9 million dollars, as compared with 3.8 from 
Pennsylvania, 3.5 from Virginia, 2.9 from Massachusetts and 2.5 from Maryland. 
In 1800 they were, from South Carolina 10.6 million dollars, from New York 
14, from Maryland 12, from Pennsylvania 12, from Massachusetts 11.3, from 
Virginia 4.4. 



./ 



The South Carolina Fcdtra/isfs, I. 531 

tions of tlie period the issues lay between classes of people differcn- 
tialed by temperament, occupation and pro])erty-lioldino-, rather than 
between sections antai^onized by the pressure of conllictin.i;' geo- 
graphical conditions and needs. 1'lie tem])erament of the South in 
general was more impulsive than that of the North, and therefore 
its views were likely to be the more democratic in that period of 
democratic agitation ; but there were man>- reasons why the dominant 
class in a state like South Carolina should keep firm hold ui)on its 
emotions. The traditions <^f the South, too. laid greater stress upon 
individualism and local autonom_\- ; but the special needs of the 
period counteracted this tendency also among a large element who 
wanted most a stable regime and leaned toward constructive policy. 

As in many other cases in American history, the first phase in 
South Carolina party development in the Federalist period was the 
rise of local factions diiiering over local issues. Each of these 
provided itself with more or less definite party machinery, and 
attracted to its membership the persons of appropriate economic 
interests, social affiliations and personal points of view. Finally 
each of the local parties sought alliance with parties in other states 
in the Union, with a view to exerting influence upon the common 
federal government. 

A beginning of the Federalist frame of mind may be seen as 
early as the movement of revolt from Great Britain. This move- 
ment in South Carolina was controlled by the aristocracy, and had 
little concern with the doctrine of natural rights. It was merely 
a demand for home-rule, with few appeals to theory of any sort. 
It was, furthermore, a movement for home-rule in Anglo-America 
as a whole, and not for the independence of the separate common- 
wealth of South Carolina. As an illustration of this, Christopher 
Gadsden, whose work of leadership in South Carolina corresponds 
to that of Samuel .Adams in Massachusetts, wrote as early as 1765, 
" There ought to be no New England men, no New Yorkers, etc., 
known on the Continent, but all of us Americans."- Gadsden, 
furthermore, was so conspicuously artistocratic in his general atti- 
tude that he was charged by a leading Democrat in 1783 with having 
originated " nabobism " in Charleston.'' As might be expected 
accordingly, the experience of this commonwealth during the whole 

-Letter of Christopher Gadsden, Charleston, December 2, 1765, to Charles 
Garth, agent of the colony of South Carolina at London. R. W. Gibbes, 
Documentary History of the American Revolution, chiefly in South Carolina, 
1 764-1 776, p. 8. 

^Letter of Alexander Gillon, South Carolina Gazette, September g, 1783. 



532 U. B. Phillips 

revolutionary period failed to emphasize either democratic theor\ 
or state-rights doctrine* as much as did the agitations in numerous 
other states. 

The divergence of parties upon local issues began during the 
war, if not before. The stress of the war times was extremely 
severe. The capture of Savannah in 1778 and of Charleston at 
the beginning of 1780 enabled the British forces to overrun the 
whole countryside and lay waste large tracts as far distant as the 
middle of the Piedmont region. Some of the inhabitants opposed 
the invaders by enlisting in the Continental army, and some by 
serving in partisan bands under Marion, Pickens and Sumter. 
Others came out openly as loyalists, giving aid to the British. 
Finally, a number of well-to-do citizens of the Charleston district, 
after experiencing for some months the distresses of invasive war, 
discouraged at the gloomy local prospects, and believing now that 
the country was grasping at the shadow of liberty and losing the 
substance of prosperity and happiness,^ ceased their more or less 
active assistance to the " patriot " cause, accepted protection from 
General Cornwallis, and assumed neutral status." In January, 1782, 
the state legislature in its session at Jacksonborough, while the 
British still held Charleston, passed acts confiscating the property 
of loyalists and amercing a number of citizens listed as having 
accepted British protection and having deserted the American 
cause. This led to much subsequent controversy.' 

At the close of the war, the country lay devastated, the field- 
gangs and equipment of plantations were depleted, markets im- 
paired, and the British bounty lost which had sustained the indigo 
industry. Worse than all this, the body politic was torn by factional 

* W. H. Drayton, it is true, in 1778 denounced the Articles of Confederation, 
then before the state for ratification, on the ground that they would strip the 
several states of powers with which they could not safely part and would create 
a central government of enormous and dreadful powers Niles, Principles and 
Acts of the Revolution, pp. 98-115; Tyler, Literary History of the American 
Revolution, I. 491, 493. But this fantastic apprehension held by Drayton shortly 
before his death seems to have been sporadic and to have made no lasting im- 
pression unless upon a few men like Rawlins Lowndes, mentioned below. 

° E. g., the case of Rawlins Lowndes as explained by Judge Pendleton in the 
Charleston Evening Gazette, October 27, 1785. See also, letter of Ralph Izard, 
April 27, 1784, to Thomas Jefferson, in the South Carolina Historical and 
Genealogical Magazine, II. 194, 195. 

° For treatment of this general theme, see McCrady, History of South Caro- 
lina in the Revolution, passim. 

' For a belated statement of considerations operating pro and contra in the 
debates at Jacksonborough, see the discussion in the Assem1)ly, February 21, 
1787, reported in the Charleston Morning Post, February 22, 1787. 



The South Carolina Fcdi-ralis/s, I. 533 

spirit, and the leaders of oi)ini()ii, tli<nii;h somewhat dazed hy the 
inagnitude and eomi)lexit\' of the problems to be handlrd, bcij^an 
clamoring in support of a great diversity of policies. 

The first issue was upon the treatment of loyalists and other 
obnoxious persons. Most of the substantial citizens favored such 
toleration for these as the British treaty required; Ixit a group of 
radicals undertook, without the formality of law, to administer dis- 
cipline to selected persons, and to drive them from the state. It 
was doubtful for a twelvemonth whether mob law or statute law 
would prevail. Judge ^^danns I'.urke in his charge to the grand 
jury at Charleston. June 9, 1783, expressed fears that the ])e(jple, 
rendered boisterous by the war times, might turn against one an- 
other in factions. Four men, said he, had been killed in Charleston 
since the British army departed, and numerous others in the countrv. 
He deplored the retaliatory spirit, tending to beget feuds and 
factions, and he urged the grand jury to take steps to crush all 
violence.^ In spite of this, a number of men gathered on the even- 
ing of July 10, whether as a mob or as an organized company, and 
" pumped " four or five persons whom they thought obnoxious to 
the state. ° Next day a number of men of official status, principally 
members of the legislature, waited upon the governor and asked 
him to safeguard the good name of the city and state by suppressing 
this spirit of violence. The governor at once issued a proclamation 
denouncing the disorder, declaring that future breaches of the 
peace would be punished, and appealing to the judges, peace officers 
and all good citizens to aid in discouraging conduct of such alarming 
tendency." 

Order was restored by this measure ; but the spirit of persecution 
still lived, to break out again in the following year. Meanwhile 
the men who most strongly cherished this hostility organized them- 
selves as a force to be reckoned with. The prime mover in this 
appears to have been Alexander (]illon, a Charleston merchant who 
had been commissioned as commodore by the state of South Caro- 
lina in 1780 and sent abroad to obtain and operate a navy for the 
state. His achievement then w^as to hire a frigate from the Duke 
of Luxemburg, to equip it with a French crew, and send it out, 
after months of delay, to prey upon the British merchant marine. 
This frigate was soon captured by the British navy, and its cost 
added a very large item to South Carolina's Revolutionary debt. 

'* South Carolina Gazette and General Advertiser, June lo, 1783. 

"/birf., July 12, 1783. 

'"Ibid. 



534 U. B. Phillips 

Gillon saw no maritime service, but remained a titular commodore. 
His principal colleague in the leadership of the Charleston radicals 
was Dr. James Fallon. Their followers appear to have been mostly 
of the city's unpropertied class. 

There was at this time a club in Charleston named the Smoking 
Society, of a convivial character, or as said by its critics, bac- 
chanalian. Gillon and Fallon had themselves made president and 
secretary respectively of this club, changed its name to the " Marine 
Anti-Britannic Society ", and devoted it to the championship of rad- 
ical causes in politics." An indication of the strength of the faction 
which he headed lies in Gillon's election by the Privy Council to the 
lieutenant-governorship of the state, August 22, 1783,^^ just a month 
after the " pumping " episode. This action by the Council may 
have been due to its having a majority of radicals among its mem- 
bers, or perhaps as probably to the desire of the conservatives to 
pacify the radicals by placing their leader in a position of dignity 
but of harmlessness in the administration. That Fallon also was 
zealously active is shown by a letter in the Georgia Gazette, October 
16, 1783, written by a Georgian signing himself " Mentor " and 
apologizing for his interference by saying, " I cannot be happy when 
a sister state is fomented by intestine broils ". The writer warned 
the people of Charleston against Fallon as a demagogue and against 
the anarchy which mob action would bring : " The common people 
of Charleston, though liable to be misled, are still open to con- 
viction. . . . Tell them ", he urged upon the leading men of the 
city, " that the advantages resulting from the preservation of gov- 
ernment are Freedom, Unanimity, Commerce, and National Reputa- 
tion ; point out to them that the damnable evils which eternally 
spring from the anarchy they have aimed at are Suspicion, Dis- 
sension, Poverty, Disgrace, and Dissolution ". 

One of the Charleston papers printed in September a memorial 
of citizens of Northumberland County, Virginia, urging conserva- 
tism in public policy, liberal treatment towards foreigners, the re- 
fraining by public officers from the abuse of their powers, and the 
general toning up of political morality and manners." Aside from 

" Announcement of the annual dinner of the society to commemorate the 
evacuation of Charleston by the British on December 14, 1842. Gazette of the 
State of South Carolina, November 27, 1783. Letter signed "Another Patriot", 
South Carolina Gazette and General Advertiser, May 8 to 11, 1784. 

^- South Carolina Gazette and General Advertiser, August 23, 1783. 

^* Memorial by 69 inhabitants of Northumberland County to their delegates 
in the Virginia Assembly, June 10, 1783. South Carolina Gazette and General 
Advertiser, September 16 to 20, 1783. 



The South Caroli)ia Federalists, /. 535 

this, little art^umoiit for conservatism ai)pcarecl in the Charleston 
press during- the autumn of 1783. The radicals were more active, 
but the quarrel died down in winter, to flare up again in the spring. 
Ralph Izard wrote Thomas Jefferson from his plantation near 
Charleston. April 27, 1784: "Would to (jod I could say that 
tranquility was perfectly restored in this State. Dissensions and 
factions still exist, and like the li\dra, when one head is destroyed, 
another arises."" 

At this time the dissension was in full blast again ; and the issue 
was more clear-cut than before. Each faction had acquired one 
of the daily newspapers as its organ. In the early spring the 
Marine Anti-Britannic Society adopted resolutions, described by 
its opponents as ridiculous and pompous jargon, and rc(|uested each 
of the gazettes of the city to publish them. Mrs. Timothy, who 
owned the Gazette of the State of South Carolina, gave them due 
publication ; but John Miller, publisher of the South Carolina Gazette 
and General Advertiser, who was also state printer, " in terms very 
preemptory and disrespectful, refused to give any place in his 
gazette to the society's resolutions, evidencing thereby, as well as 
by some former acts of his toward the said Society, that his Press 
is not thoroughly uninfluenced and free ". The society therefore 
resolved unanimously to boycott Miller's journal as regarded both 
subscriptions and advertisements.^^ 

The Anti-Britannics now resorted to an attempt at terrorism. 
About the middle of April they posted handbills in Charleston list- 
ing eleven persons, either loyalists or recent immigrants, and giving 
them notice to quit the state within ten days. About the same time 
they or their allies did violence to the person of a Mr. Rees in the 
interior of the state; and Mrs. Timothy's paper published reports, 
apparently false, of similar lynch-law punishments inflicted upon 
other persons. In denouncing these proceedings, a citizen writing 
under the anonym " Another Patriot ", in the South Carolina Gazette 
and General Advertiser, April 28, expressed the hope that persons 
about to sail from Charleston for Europe would not take the hand- 
bills too seriously nor spread lurid reports of them abroad, to add 
to the damage done the state by the reports of the " pumping 
match " of the previous year. lie assured them that an association 
of the good citizens was being formed, resolutely determined to 

"South Carolina Historical Magazine, II. 194. 

" Preamble and resolutions printed in the Gazette of the State of South 
Carolina, April 8, 1784. 



536 U. B. Phillips 

uphold the magistracy and to put it out of the power of malcontents 
to disturb the peace of the city. 

The city council resolved on April 30 that in order to secure 
the suppression of any riots which might occur, the bell of St. 
Michael's church should be rung in case of turbulence, whereupon 
the intendant and wardens should at once repair to the state-house ; 
and it commanded that all magistrates and constables, with their 
emblems of office, and all regular and peaceable citizens should rally 
likewise at the state-house and " invigorate the arm of Govern- 
ment "}^ This riot ordinance seems to have turned the tide against 
the Anti-Britannics. The writer " Another Patriot " declared in 
Miller's paper of May 11, that most of those who had been followers 
of Gillon and Fallon had joined the society in the belief, fostered 
by its officers, that it would advantage them in their trades ; but 
that these had at length seen through the cheat, and that at a recent 
meeting only thirty-nine members could be assembled out of the 
six hundred of which the society's hand-bills had boasted.^^ This 
exposure was shortly followed by ridicule. A citizen calling him- 
self " A Steady and Open Republican ", in a long article denouncing 
Fallon, turned upon the society ■}^ 

Carolina, that has not twenty of her natives at sea, immediately to 
set up an Anti-Britannic Marine Society ! Laughable indeed ! If in- 
tended to raise a Navy, that is expressly contrary to the Confederation, 
and I confess the very thought of such a thing gives me the gripes, 
before we recover from the endless expences and embarrassments of the 
wretched bargain made for us only in the hare hire of one single 
Frigate. 

Several anonymous radicals replied,^'^ and a running controversy 
was kept up in the gazettes from May to September. There was 
apparently for some years no further attempt at mob action ;2° the 
radicals turned their attention instead to getting control of the 
government through polling majorities in the elections. Of this and 
the outcome, John Lloyd wrote from Charleston, December 7, 1784, 
to his nephew, T. B. Smith •}'^ 

^^ South Carolina Gazette and General Advertiser, May i, 1784. 

'' Ihid., May II, 1784. 

^^Ibid., May 13, 1784. 

" One of these was driven to reveal himself as William Hornby. 

^ E. g., M. Petrie wrote from Charleston, May 18, 1792, to Gabriel Mani- 
gault, Goose Creek, S. C. : " M. de Kereado has taken passage in Garman, just 
arrived. He is very right to leave this town, full of discord. Threatenings 
of raising the mob against some lately arrived have succeeded to the impnissance 
of raising or getting the Law against them." MS. in possession of Mrs. Hawkins 
Jenkins, Pinopolis, S. C. 

-'MS. in the Charleston Library. 



The South Caroluia Federalists, I. 537 

The inalccoiitcnttHl party having by several pubhcations endeavoured 
to influence the electors throughout the State to make choice of men to 
represent them in the General Assembly, from the lower class: the 
gentlemen of property, to preserve their necessary consecjuence in the 
community and in order to prevent anarchy and confusion, have almost 
imanimously exerted themselves in opposition to them, and it is with 
particular pleasure I inform you they have pretty generally carried 
their point, especially in this city, so that we shall have exceedingly 
good representation, and by that means support the honor and credit 
of the country. 

Antagonism to the aristocracy, however, was strong, particularly 
in the upland districts, where the cotton industry did not yet exist 
and a small-farming regime prevailed. Izard wrote to Jefferson, 
June 10, 1785: "Our governments tend too much to Democracy. 
A handicraftsman thinks an apprenticeship necessary to make him 
acquainted with his business. But our back countrymen are of 
opinion that a politician may be born such, as well as a poet."" 

The governor gave notice on March 17, 1785, that all persons 
who had been exiled from sister states and had taken refuge in 
South Carolina must leave the state within one month from the 
date of this notice ; and that all persons who had been banished from 
South Carolina and had returned thither under the provisions of 
the British treaty, might remain in the state for three months longer 
than the treaty stipulated, but must depart immediately at the end 
of that period. 2^ This action by the executive put an end to the 
anti-loyalist agitation ; but the parties already in process of evolution 
continued to develop and to oppose one another upon successive new 
issues. 

The prevalence of acute hard times, reaching extreme severity 
in 1785 and 1786, turned public attention sharply to questions of 
industry, commerce and finance. A narrative of economic develop- 
ments in the state following the close of the British war was related 
by Judge Henry Pendleton in his charges to the grand juries of 
Georgetown, Cheraws and Camden Districts, in the autumn of 1786, 
in part as follows :-* 

No sooner had we recovered and restored the country to peace and 
order than a rage for running into debt became epidemical ; instead of 
resorting to patient industry, and by slow and cautious advances, re- 
covering to the state that opulence and vigor which the devastations 

^ South Carolina Historical Magazine, II. 197. 

"" Gazette of the State of South Carolina, March 21, 1785. 

^Charleston Morning Post, December 13, 1786. Practically the same nar- 
rative is given as a preface to an argument for the repeal of the " stay laws ", 
in a letter signed " Appius ", addressed to the General Assembly, and printed in 
the Charleston Morning Post, February 15 and 16. 1787. 



538 U. B. Phillips 

of a long and calamitous war had destroyed, individuals were for 
getting rich by a coup de main, a good bargain — a happy speculation 
was almost every man's object and pursuit. Instead of a rigid economy, 
which the distress of the times so strongly excited, what a load of 
debt was in a short time contracted in the purchase of British super- 
fluities, and of lands and slaves for which no price was too high, if credit 
for the purchase was to be obtained; these fatal effects too were accel- 
erated by the very indulgence and lenity which afforded the happiest 
opportunity to those in debt to surmount all their difficulties — I mean 
the act for prescribing the payment of old debts by instalments of one, 
two and three years; had this act totally abolished all old debts, men 
could not with more avidity have run on contracting new ones. How 
small a pittance of the produce of the years 1783, 4 and 5, altho' 
amounting to upwards of 400,000 1. sterling a year, on an average, 
hath been applied toward lessening old burdens? Hence it was that 
men not compelled by law to part with the produce of these years, for 
the payment of their debts, employed it to gain a further credit in 
new purchases to several times the amount, and thereby forced an 
exportation of it to foreign parts, at a price which the markets of 
consumption would not bear — what then was the consequence ?— the 
merchants were driven to the exportation of gold and silver, which 
so rapidly followed, and with it fled the vital spirit of the government: 
— a diminution of the value of the capital, as well as the annual produce 
of estates, in consequence of the fallen price, — the loss of public credit, 
and the most alarming deficiencies in the revenue, and in the collection 
of the taxes; the recovery of new debts, as well as old in effect sus- 
pended, while the numerous bankruptcies which have happened in 
Europe, amongst the merchants trading to America, the reproach of 
which is cast upon us, have proclaimed to all the trading nations 
to guard against our laws and policy, and even against our moral 
principles. 

The governor's message to the general assembly on September 
26, 1785, called attention to the calamitous state of affairs existing: 
money scarce, men unable to pay their debts, and citizens liable to 
fall prey to aliens. The House at once appointed a committee of 
fifteen members on the state of the republic. In the open debate 
which this large committee held on September 28, several remedies 
for the shortage of money were proposed: one by Ralph Izard on 
behalf of conservatives, that the importation of negro slaves be 
prohibited for three years and the community thereby saved from 
the constant drain of capital which it was suffering; others by 
radical representatives for the more obvious but more short-sighted 
recourse to stay-laws and paper money. -^ The assembly at this 
session adopted the proposal of paper money, and authorized its 
issue to the amount of i 100,000, to be loaned to citizens, on security, 
for five years at seven per cent.^*' 

"^Charleston Evening Gazette, September 26 and 28, 1785. 

"Act of October 12, 1785, in Cooper and McCord, S. C. Statutes at Large, 
IV. 712-716. 



The Sou tit Cayoliiia Federalists, 1 . 539 

Next spriiii;-, the depression had grown even more severe. 
Many Charleston merchants had gone ont of bnsiness and the rent 
of shops had fallen one-third.-' Commodore Gillon, a member for 
Charleston, proposed in February, 1786, a stay-law, granting debtors 
three years in which to meet obligations, and exempting them from 
sheriffs' sales meanwhile. After long debate this bill passed the 
House, but it was apparently defeated in the Senate. In December 
Gillon stood for re-election, and was returned as twenty-eighth in 
the list of thirty representatives from the Charleston parishes.-^ 
In February, 1787. Gillon reintroduced his bill for a stay-law, and 
gave warning that if it were not enacted, something more radical 
might be expected. Dr. Ramsay, in opposition, denied the right 
of the legislature to interfere in private contracts, and said that the 
experiments which South Carolina had already made in stay-laws 
had shown that they promoted irresponsibility and did no sub- 
stantial good. He declined to believe that the people would become 
tumultuous if the bill should fail to pass. ]\Ir. John Julius Pringle. 
Speaker of the House, advocated the bill, stating that the voice 
of the people was so strenuous in its favor that it would not be 
sound policy to reject it. The bill passed the committee of the whole 
house by a large majority,-" and was enacted. Other debates on 
phases of the same question occurred in 1788, which further widened 
the rift between conservatives and radicals.^*^ 

The industrial depression continued for several years longer, 
until in the middle nineties the development of the cotton industry, 
beginning with the introduction of the sea-island variety in 1786 
in Georgia and two or three years later in South Carolina, and 
hastened and immensely enlarged in its possibilities by Whitney's 
invention of the short-staple gin, in 1793, brought a renewal of 
general prosperity. To illustrate the situation of numerous planters 
during the hard times, a letter is extant from Joseph Bee to a credi- 
tor, October 19, 1789 :-*^ 

^ Letter of John Lloyd, then president of the Senate of South Carolina, to 
T. B. Smith, April 15, 1786. MS. in the Charleston Library. 

"* His vote was 203, as against 426 for David Ramsay and Edward Rutledge, 
at the head of the poll, 422 for C. C. Pinckney, 413 for Thomas Pinckney, and 
similar votes for other conservative gentry. Charleston Morning Post, December 
5, 1786. 

^Charleston Morning Post, February 19, 1787. Act of March 28, 1787, in 
Cooper and McCord, Statutes at Large, V. 36-38. 

"* Debates on this subject, in the autumn session of the legislature, may be 
found in the Charleston City Gazette or Daily Advertiser, October 23, 1788. 

'' MS. among the Gibbes papers, owned by the Gibbes family, Columbia, S. C. 



540 U. B. Phillips 

It has been my misfortune, among several hundreds to have been 
sued and even to have had Judgements obtained against me, in conse- 
quence of which I find the sheriff has a very valuable plantation of mine 
to be sold, which I at sundry times endeavoured to do, both at Public 
and Private Sale in order to satisfy my Creditors, but all my endeavour 
proved fruitless, therefore it would be needless for me in such a case 
to ask a Friend the favour, as I might naturally expect a Denial, there- 
fore I would just leave the matter to yourself to act in whatever way 
you think proper, tho at the same time I could most heartily wish 
that I could command money in order to close the matter, as it gives 
me pain to be dunned at any time. . . . 

Bee finally announced in the public prints, June, 1784, that hav- 
ing been reduced to poverty through the sale of his real estate 
by the sheriff for a thirteenth part of what he might forrrierly have 
had for it at private sale, he was now prepared to go to jail to con- 
vince his creditors — after which he hoped to be left in some peace 
of mind. 

The assembly in 1791 provided for the gradual calling in of the 
loans made to the citizens under the act of 1785 and for the retire- 
ment of the paper money.'- But in the following years measures 
occasionally prevailed for delaying the redemption ; and there was 
almost constantly a dread among the conservatives that the radicals 
might again get the upper hand and, if unchecked by state or 
federal constitutions, do great mischief to the commonwealth. 

Local concerns, however, were overshadowed after 1787 by 
problems directly connected with federal relations and policy, while 
in some cases, such as those of paper money, tariff and public debt, 
the former local problems were quickly handed over to the central 
government. It was quite natural under the circumstances, that the 
political factions which had grown into existence while the state 
government was managing nearly all of the public business should 
continue in life, and, after a brief period of transition and partial 
reorganization, should transfer the general application of their 
points of view and predilections to the affairs of the federal gov- 
ernment. 

The need of more efficient central control in the United States 
had been felt by the Carolina planters immediately upon the ending 
of the British war. An expression of this, for example, was a 
pamphlet attributed with probable justice to Christopher Gadsden.^^ 

^^Act of February 19, 1791, in Cooper and McCord, Statutes at Large, V. 
166-167. 

'* Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution. . . . The 
lower half of the title-page of the copy in the Charleston Library is torn off and 
missing. The pamphlet was apparently written in 1783 or 1784. 



The South Caro/ina Tedera lists, I. 541 

The author of this expressed stratification at the successful close of 
the American revolt, and urged the advisibility of preserving peace. 
To this end he thought firm government necessary, and especially 
sound policy in luiancc.'" Congress, he said, nmst be trusted with 
the power of securing supi)lies for the expenses of the Confederation 
and the power of contracting debts, and " this power must not be 
capable of being defeated by the opposition of any minority in the 
States " ; everything depends upon the preservation of a firm political 
union, " and such a union cannot be preserved without giving all 
possible weight and energy to the authority of that delegation which 
constitutes the Union ". In conclusion, to drive home his conten- 
tion, he pictured the consequences to be expected if the policv were 
not adopted. He lamented the rise of clashing interests,-" and 
foreboded that in the absence of any strong central control these 
would break the union, and in that event the whole work of the 
Revolution would miscarry, the movement for liberty in all future 
elYorts would be discouraged, and the present epoch would but open 
a new scene of human degeneracy and wretchedness. 

In 1784 the Charleston new^spapers from time to time advocated 
strengthening the Union, on general principles, and in 1785 they 
regretted New York's veto of the plan to empower Congress to levy 
import duties. Concrete local developments promoted nationalism 
especially among the planters. To improve their method of rice 
culture they were abandoning the earlier system of irrigating their 
fields from reservoirs of rain-water, and were clearing and em- 
banking great tracts of river swamps which could be flooded and 
drained at will through the rise and fall of the tide.'"' For this 
work they needed large supplies of capital on loan and they were 
embarrassed by its dearth. The financial crisis of 1785 forced the 
planters, and the merchants also, to face the situation squarelv and 
to realize that the achievement of political independence by the 
United States had not made South Carolina financially self-sufficient. 
It made them see that economically their commonwealth was still 
in a colonial condition, in need of steady backing by some strong 
financial power. England was no longer available ; but they saw 
that the Northern commercial states could be made a substitute. 
At the same time it was seen that a political alliance with the 
Northern conservative interests w^ould partly safeguard the Caro- 
lina conservatives from injury in case the radicals should locally get 

" Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution, p. i8. 

^ Ibid., p. 85. 

" Cf. Mrs. St. Juliet! Ravenel, Life and Times of WilHain Lowndes, pp. 22, 23. 

AM. HIST. REV., vol.. XIV. 35. 



542 U. B. Phillips 

into control. On the whole in this period the conservatives of the 
Charleston district appear to have dreaded the rule of their local 
opponents as the worst of threatening evils, and to have welcomed 
the restriction of the state's functions in large part because it 
would reduce the scope of the possible damage to be wrought by 
the radicals in their midst in case they should capture the state 
machinery. For a number of years, therefore, most of the leading 
planters on the coast, and many of the merchants, not only favored 
the remodelling of the central government as accomplished in 1787- 
1789, but favored also the exercise of broad powers by Congress 
under the Constitution. 

In the years 1786-1788, even the radicals of the Charleston dis- 
trict largely approved the strengthening of the Union, partly per- 
haps because they saw that commerce depended upon efficient 
government, and partly because some of their leaders, notably the 
brilliant young Charles Pinckney,^^ had ambition for careers in 
national affairs. The South Carolina delegates in the Federal 
Convention, all of whom were from the Charleston vicinity, all 
favored the new Constitution ; nearly all of the lowland members 
of the state legislature in 1788 voted for the call of a state convention 
with power to ratify it; and in that convention the delegation from 
Charleston voted solidly aye upon the motion to ratify. For the 
time, therefore, at least upon the question of federal relations, the 
Charleston factions were largely at peace. Commodore Gillon, 
for example, in the debate in the House of Representatives found 
himself an ally of C. C. Pinckney and David Ramsay.^* 

The opposition to the federal plan of 1787 came from the distant 
interior of the state, but as its chief spokesman found one of the 
aristocratic conservatives of the coast, in the person of Rawlins 
Lowndes. The uplanders had had experience within the state of 
living under a government which, by reason of their having a 
minority in the leo;islature, they could not control ; and they dreaded 
a similar arrangement in the federal system. Lowndes, also, was 
impressed with the prospective danger that a coalition of northern 
interests might use the federal machinery for the oppression of 
South Carolina with her peculiar needs ; and he pleaded with his 
fellow slaveholding planters to adopt his view, but without success. 

^' Not to be contused with General Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, who like 
his brother Thomas was a conservative and a Federalist. To distinguish him 
from his cousin Charles Cotesworth, Charles Pinckney was nicknamed " Black- 
guard Charlie " by the conservatives. 

**J. Elliot, Debates, third ("second") ed., IV. 253-317. 



The South Caro/itia I'\'dcra/ists, I. 543 

Lowndes was not even elected to the state convention. In his 
absence Patrick Dollard from the interior was the sole spokesman 
of the opposition to the ordinance. He said i^" 

My constituents are highly alarmed at the large and rapid strides 
which this new government has taken towards despotism. They say 
it is big with political mischiefs and pregnant with a greater variety 
of impending woes to the good people of the Southern States, especially 
South Carolina, than all the plagues supposed to issue from the box of 
Pandora. They say it is particularly calculated for the meridian of 
despotic aristocracy ; that it evidently tends to promote the ambitious 
views of a few able and designing men, and enslave the rest. 

The coast delej^ates were solidly deaf to this declaration, as they 
had been to Lowndes's arguments, though some of them, patricians 
and plebeians, were destined after a short experience under the new 
government to reverse their position and cham])i<)n the doctrines 
which they now rejected. 

Ulrich B. Phillips. 

^» lilliot, Debates, IV. 336-338. 



LReprinted from Thk Amkkilan IIhimkk \i K k\ii u . \'o1 X I \'., No. 4, July, Kjog.] 



THE SOUTH CAROLINA FEDERALISTS, II. 

Thk scene of chief interest in the pohtical history of South 
CaroHna now shifts to the federal Congress — to the debates upon 
the initial policies of the government, and their influence upon the 
sentiment of the members and the public. The senators from South 
Carolina during the first sessions were Ralph Izard and Pierce 
Butler, who accorded in their policies for a year or two, but then 
drifted apart. lUitlcr was impetuous in disposition, and likely to 
denounce all persons, the administration included, who opposed his 
views. Izard was somewhat more magisterial in temperament. 
Butler had acted with the conservatives in 1 783-1784, and had 
supported the new federal Constitution in 1787-1788. But a brief 
experience in Congress brought the beginning of a thorough change 
in his attitude. On August 11, 1789, he wrote from New York to 
James Iredell of North Carolina, who had been a close friend:^ 

I find locality and partiality reign as much in our Supreme Legisla- 
ture as they could in a county court or State Legislature. ... I came 
here full of hopes that the greatest liberality would be exercised; that 
the consideration of the zvhole, and the general good would take place of 
every object; but here I find men scrambling for partial advantages, 
State interests, and in short a train of those narrow, impolitic measures 
that must after a while shake the LInion to its very foundation. ... I 
confess I wish you [i. e., the state of North Carolina] to come into the 
confederacy as the only chance the Southern interest has to preserve a 
balance of power. 

William Maclay, the caustic senator from Pennsylvania, observes 
in his Journal that Butler was himself the personification of section- 
alism, bent upon the selfsame narrow policy for local advantage 
which he censured so flamingly in others.- The development of 
Butler's general attitude, it may be remarked, was closely paralleled 
in the case of all the leading Georgia politicians of the period,^ 
wdiile Izard's policies were those of almost the whole group of 
South Carolina conservatives. 

After Butler through denouncing the tariff and tonnage bills 

* G. J. McRee, Life and Correspondence of James Iredell, II. 264, 265. For 
other letters of Butler to Iredell, see ibid., II. 44, 87, 403 and 406. 

^Journal of IVilliam Maclay, edited by E. S. Maclay, pp. 71, 72 et passim. 

^ Cf. U. B. Phillips, "Georgia and Stat^ Rights ", in the Annual Report of the 
American Historical Association for 1901. II. 26 et passim. 

(730 



732 U. B. Phillips 

had drifted into the opposition, Izard's chief working associate in 
Congress was his son-in-law Wilham Smith,* a representative from 
South CaroHna for nearly a decade in the Lower House. These 
two, aided vigorously after 1794 by Robert Goodloe Harper, were 
apparently the chief agents in holding the South Carolina conserva- 
tives firmly to the nationalistic policies and to the Federalist party 
alignment. 

The chief issue in the First Congress promoting the doctrine of 
broad construction on the part of the South Carolinians was that 
of the assumption of state debts. South Carolina, together with 
Massachusetts and Connecticut, was laboring under a heavy debt' 
incurred during the war and still undischarged. The desire to have 
this assumed by the central government was a federalizing influence 
in the state. William Smith, furthermore, bought up a quantity of 
state notes, and passed the word around among his Charleston 
friends that there was probably money to be made by all who would 
enter the speculation. •* This of course increased the enthusiasm 
with which " assumption " was locally favored. 

There was little discussion in the state, it seems, over the first 
two presidential elections. George Washington was the obvious 
choice for the presidency, and South Carolina gave him her eight 
electoral votes in each case. At the first election she gave her 
remaining eight votes to John Rutledge, a citizen of her own whom 
she was delighted to honor; and in 1792 her electors cast seven 
votes for Adams and one for Burr. George Clinton, the regular 
Republican vice-presidential candidate at the time, was little known 
in the state ; and the Republican party had not yet acquired firm 
organization.'^ 

In 1792 affairs in France reached a crisis in their course which 
caused the Revolutionary government there to declare war against 
all the neighboring monarchs of Europe and to proclaim a world- 
wide crusade to establish its doctrines of Liberty, Equality and Fra- 
ternity. This propaganda was promptly extended to the United 
States, and Citizen Genet, its chief emissary, began his work in the 

* Sometimes called by his full name, William Loughton Smith, but signing 
himself apparently always without the middle name. 

^ Some four million dollars in the case of South Carolina. 

° Letter of David Campbell, a relative of Smith, to the editor, in the Charleston 
City Gazette and Daily Advertiser, October 3, 1794. The period was one of 
much speculation throughout the country. 

' The narrative of the Jeffersonian and Hamiltonian party origins, written 
from the Federalist point of view, was published in a pamphlet preserved in the 
William Smith collection ii the Charleston Library and attributed to William 
Smith, It is entitled The Politicks and Viezi's of a Certain Party (1792). 



The South Carolina Federalists, II. "] i}, 

city of Charleston in April. 1793. Some of the local radicals, as \vc 
have seen, hail already been disposed to be hostile toward (ireat 
Britain, and to adopt popnlistic i)olicies in donv.'stic affairs. The 
French ai,Mtation now greatly strengthened these tendencies. The 
enthusiasm for France and Democracy was for a time very great. 
Two societies, the " Republican " and the " French Patriotic ", were 
promptly formed at Charleston, and like the many similar organiza- 
tions at the time in the other cities and towns of the United States, 
drank multitudinous toasts with great acclaim to liberty and equal 
rights and to the perpetual friendship of France and America.^ 
Many of the young men particularly were captivated by the enthu- 
siasm ; and the military and naval commissions olTered by Genet 
were eagerly accepted by adventurous characters among the citizens.** 
But there were those who welcomed neither Genet nor the ideas 
which he represented ; and the ardor even of many of the enthu- 
siasts was soon chilled by President Washington's disapproval of 
Genet's deeds. In some cases, that of Robert Goodloe Harper for 
example, the reaction was so strong as to carry young men all the 
way from rampant democracy to fast conservatism and steady mem- 
bership in the Federalist party.^" By the end of 1793 the people of 
South Carolina were in well-defined Francophile and Francophobe 
factions.^^ The conservatives had control of the South Carolina 
house of representatives. On December 2, 1793, that house resolved, 
unanimously, that a committee be appointed with full powers to 
send for persons and papers and ascertain the truth of a report that 
an armed force was levying in the state by persons under foreign 

'* E. g., S. C. State Gazette, September 22, 1793; Charleston City Gazette and 
Daily Advertiser, February 9, 1795 ; American Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia), 
July 31 and September 4, 1793. 

" C/. "The Mangourit Correspondence in Respect to Genet's Projected Attack 
upon the Floridas, 1793-1794", in the Annual Report of the American Historical 
Association for 1897, pp. 569-679 ; and " Correspondence of the French Ministers 
to the United States, 1791-1797", id. for 1903, vol. II., both edited by F. J. 
Turner. 

"In a debate in Congress, March 29, 1798, W. B. Giles taunted Harper with 
having declaimed with fervor in 1792 and 1793. in favor of the Rights of Man. 
Harper replied at once : " He owned he partook of that enthusiasm which at the 
time raged in America ; because he was deceived. He then believed the French 
had been unjustifiedly attacked but he now found they were the first assailants. . . . 
He then believed that the principal actors in the [French Revolution] were virtuous 
patriots, but he had since discovered that they were a set of worthless scoundrels 
and mad-headed enthusiasts, who in endeavoring to reduce their fallacious schemes 
to practice, have introduced more calamities into the world than ages of govern- 
ment will be able to cure." Charleston City Gazette, April 19, 1798. 

" A similar state of affairs prevailed in Savannah, as witness conflicting 
resolutions adopted in public meetings and reported in the Georgia Journal and 
Independent Federal Register, January 11 and 15, 1794. 



734 U. B. Phillips 

authority. On December 3, Robert Anderson, chairman of this 
committee, directed Colonel Wade Hampton to summon William 
Tate, Stephen Drayton, John Hambleton, Jacob R. Brown, Robert 
Tate and Richard Speake, to appear before the committee at once, 
using compulsion, if necessary, to bring them, and to search for 
papers relating to their recited purpose. In accordance with orders 
Hampton seized Stephen Drayton and carried him 130 miles to make 
appearance at Columbia. Drayton then employed Alexander Moul- 
trie as attorney to sue the members of the committee for $6000 
damages. The house resolved that members were not suable for 
actions taken in the house, and it summoned both Drayton and 
Moultrie to appear and receive reprimand for violating the rights 
of the house. These men refused to appear, and Moultrie in protest 
against the proceedings published a pamphlet giving the whole nar- 
rative from his point of view.^^ 

Another contretemps is related in a public letter addressed by 
M. Carey to his brother vrais sans culottes, and published in the 
South Carolina Gacctte, July 26, 1794. Upon the arrival of the 
vessel of the Republic L'Amic de la Libcrtc at Charleston after a 
cruise in neighboring waters, her officers and crew learned that Colo- 
nel Jacob Read had called them in open court a lawless band of 
pirates. Carey then accosted Read at the door of the State House 
and demanded his reason for such accusation. Read replied that he 
did not consider himself bound to answer for his language in court 
to unknown and insignificant characters. Carey then called Read a 
liar and a scoundrel and gave him his address ; but next day Read 
filed a complaint against him and Carey was bound over to keep the 
peace. Read now took ofifense at the Gazette for publishing Carey's 
letter and challenged one of its editors, Timothy, to a duel ; but the 
affray was prevented by an officer of the law. 

In Charleston and the plantation districts the coolness toward 
democratic theory and the reaction against it were promoted by the 
news from the French West Indies. In Hayti particularly, the 
application of the doctrine of inherent liberty and equality to the 
negro population had led to an overwhelming revolt of the blacks 
under Toussaint L'Ouverture, and had brought great disaster to the 
whites. Haytian refugees flocked into Charleston, as well as into 
New Orleans, Norfolk, Philadelphia and New York, furnishing 
whether audibly or silently an argument for firm government. A 
view which prevailed throughout the decade was expressed by Na- 

^- An Appeal to the People, on the Conduct of a certain Public Body in South 
Carolina respecting Col. Drayton and Col. Moultrie, by Alexander Moultrie 
(Charleston, i794'- 



Tlic SoutJi Cayoli)ia J\dcralists, II. 735 

thanicl Russell, writing from Charleston. June (\ 1794, t.3 Rali.h 
Izard at Philadelphia:'^ 

Wc are to have a meeting of the citizens on the nth inst when I hope 
some effective measure will be adopted to prevent any evil consequences 
from that diabolical decree of the national convention which emanci- 
pates all the slaves in the french colonies, a circumstance the most alarm- 
ing that could happen to this country. 

Another consideration against thoroughgoing democracy in the 
stale was thai it woidd lead to a redistribution of rej^rescntation'* 
in the legislature in such a way that the up-country would acquire 
control of both houses and be able to enact legislation of any sort 
it desired, regardless of the opposition of the plantation interests 
which at this time and for a few years longer were still confined to 
the coast. The Jeffersonian movement, however, combining the 
principles of individual rights and state rights, welcomed from the 
beginning by the Charleston radicals, and vigorously organized by 
Charles Pinckney with Pierce Butler, Thomas Sumter and Wade 
Hampton as his colleagues, had strength enough even in the low- 
lands to keep the Federalists in fear of losing all their Congressional 
representation at each recurring election.'"' 

The theme which furnished the most active partizan discussions 
in 1 794-1 795 was of course the Jay Treaty. William Smith ad- 
dressed his constituents in a pamphlet in the spring of 1794 to vin- 
dicate his conduct in Congress from the slander of his opponents. 
He repelled the charge of advocating the cause of Great Britain or 
vindicating her piratical conduct, but he said that on the other hand 
he had been no more friendly toward France, for the French gov- 
ernment had been no more friendly toward us. He said that he 
leaned toward Great Britain in the matter of commercial relations 
for the reason that friendly connection with British trade was vastly 
the more important to the United States and especially to South 
Carolina.'" Smith mentioned the news of the Jay Treaty in a post- 
script to his pamphlet, but gave it no full discussion. The popular 

" MS. among the Ralph Izard papers in the possession of Mrs. Hawkins 
Jenkins, Pinopolis, S. C. 

" On this general theme see W. A. Schaper, " Sectionalism in South Caro- 
lina ", in the Annual Report of the Amcr. Hist. Assoc, for 1900. 

"£. g., anonymous letter to the editor, Charleston City Gazette and Daily 
Advertiser, October 10, 1794, supporting William Smith for re-election, and con- 
veying " an electioneering whisper " to the partizans of the old representation, the 
funded interest and the system of energy and power. The plan he proposes is for 
the Smith supporters to keep the opposition divided as it now is between several 
ambitious Republicans and win by casting a plurality of votes. 

^^ An Address from William Smith to his Constituents (Philadelphia, I794)' 



736 U. B. Phillips 

debate in South Carolina upon the treaty was reviewed in part by 
Harper in a letter to his constituents in 1796. The Charleston City 
Gazette, July 14, 1795, had declared the treaty "degrading to the 
National honor, dangerous to the political existence and destructive 
to the agricultural, commercial and shipping interests of the people 
of the United States ". Chief Justice Rutledge in a speech printed 
in the City Gazette of July 17 had described the treaty as "prosti- 
tuting the dearest rights of freemen and laying them at the feet of 
royalty ". Charles Pinckney in a speech at Charleston had accused 
Jay of corruption by the British court and of having bartered away 
the western territory. Harper pointed out the intemperance of these 
censures, and proceeded in quiet and solid argument to defend the 
ratification of the treaty.^' 

Up to this time the two parties had not reached full organization 
and had not decisively divided all the South Carolina voters between 
them. For example, Henry W. De Saussure and John Rutledge, 
jr., both talented popular young men and active in state politics, 
were not attached to either party. Rutledge, in fact, was elected to 
Congress by the people of Orangeburg and Beaufort districts in 
1796 as an uncommitted candidate, and he did not cast his lot with 
the Federalists until some weeks after he had taken his seat. 

In the presidential campaign of 1796 the issue was known to be 
extremely doubtful, and each side strained every resource for vic- 
tory. In South Carolina the Federalists had been made uneasy by 
losses in recent Congressional and assembly elections. To improve 
the prospects in the state and possibly in neighboring states as well, 
the party in the nation at large adopted Major Thomas Pinckney as 
its vice-presidential candidate. Pinckney belonged to an old and 
prominent rice-planting family, had served with credit in the war, 
had been governor of the state, and had recently won distinction and 
praise in the whole country as the negotiator of a very popular 
treaty with Spain. ^® He was in a word an honored member of a 
much honored conservative group of " revolutionary warriors and 
statesmen ". He was not an outright party man, but his general 
point of view was harmonious with that of the Federalists. Alex- 
ander Hamilton, in fact, tried to secure his election over Adams's 
head. With Pinckney on the ticket the party managers in South 
Carolina, Izard, Smith and Harper, hoped to get at least a few of 

" An Address from Robert Goodloe Harper^ of South Carolina, to his Con- 
stituents, containing his Reasons for approving the Treaty of Amity, Commerce 
and Navigation K'ith Great Britain (Boston, 1796). 

"Rev. C. C. Pinckney, Life of General Thomas Pinckney (Boston, 1895). 



'Ilie South Carolina Federalists. II. 737 

the electoral votes of the state for Adams:'" and Smith urged Izard 
to visit the legislature and work ti) this end. 

The local supporters of Adams fcand niaiiil\ the iiillucncc of 
F.dward Rutledge, and the outcome justified their fear. Kutlcdge 
was a signer of the Declaration of Inde])endence, and had seen some 
military service ; but after the war for many years he would accept 
no public appointment, except a seat in the state legislature which 
he held from 1782 to 1798. He rendered frequent unofficial service 
as peace-maker in preventing duels and in other private and public 
matters.-" In a word he was another highly esteemed meml)cr of 
the Revolutionary group, and was the Xestor of the legislature. 
He was the intimate friend of Thomas Pinckney. but was probably 
a little more democratic in his point of view. For exam])le. he had 
framed the act which in 1791 had abolished primogeniture in South 
Carolina.-^ Rutledge preferred Jefiferson to Adams in 1796, and 
probably had hopes, like Hamilton, of bringing in Pinckney over 
both of them. The legislature and the electors willingly adopted the 
Pinckney-Jefferson plan, and the votes of South Carolina were 
cast eight for Pinckney and eight for Jefferson. A number of New 
England Federalist electors, on the other hand, " scratched " Pinck- 
ney and reduced his total vote below that of either Adams or Jeft'er- 
son. The votes cast by South Carolina would have given Jefferson 
the presidency had not North Carolina and Virginia each given a 
single unexpected vote to Adams. 

In 1797 Ralph Izard, already in retirement from the Senate, 
was made permanently an invalid by paralysis, and William Smith, 
probably unable to control his district longer, withdrew from Con- 
gress and took the mission to Portugal. The Federalist manage- 
ment in the state passed entirely to Robert Goodloe Harper, who 
differed greatly from the local I'ederalist type l)0th in or''_rMi n:v' :-. 
residence though not in policy. He was a native of Virginia who 
after graduating at Princeton had gone to Charleston to study law 
and seek a career. Admitted to the bar in 1786, he removed to the 
up-country where lawyers were few and opportunities many. He 
rapidly gained reputation as a lawyer, pamphleteer and politician, 
changed his politics from Democratic to Federalist as we have seen, 
in 1 794-1795, and was from 1795 to 1801 by far the most alert, 
vigorous and eft'ective spokesman and leader of the Federalists in 

" On the South Carolina situation, see the letters of Smith to Izard, November 
3 and 8, 1796, and of Harper to Izard, November 4, 1796, printed in this number 
of this journal. 

=" David Ramsay. History of South Carolina (Charleston, 1809), II. 523. 

=" J. B. O'Neall. Bench and Bar of South Carolina (Charleston, 1859), H- "7. 



73^ U. B. Phillips 

the Lower South. De Saussure and Rutledge were later recruits, 
who wrought sturdily for the party in the later nineties. 

General William A. Washington, John Ewing Calhoun and Dr. 
David Ramsay were active at times as Federalist leaders of sec- 
ondary importance, and Gabriel Manigault, though always prefer- 
ring plantation life to public ofifice for himself, served steadily as a 
guiding party administrator at home while Smith and Harper were 
on the firing line in Congress. The brothers Charles Cotesworth 
and Thomas Pinckney were dignitaries within and ornaments to, 
rather than working members of, the local Federalist party. Chris- 
topher Gadsden, another prominent veteran, while sympathizing 
with his aristocratic associates, refused to countenance party action. 
He published a pamphlet in 1797 decrying the spirit of faction, 
objecting to the pledging of presidential electors in advance, and 
prophesying results from the rivalry of Jefiferson and Adams similar 
to the violence between Caesar and Pompey of old.-- 

All of the Federalist leaders were members of the old planter 
families in the lowlands, except Flarper who himself was recognized 
as of good Virginia stock. The Republicans, whether leaders or 
rank and file, were less homogeneous and, partly in consequence, 
were harder to keep in solid organization. The Charleston democ- 
racy, the poor- whites of the pine-flats and the sturdy yeomanry of 
the Piedmont furnished the chief components of the party's mass; 
but these classes were without the oratorical gift in which the gentry 
revelled and without experience in large afifairs. They elected to 
Congress a few men of their own class,-^ the veteran Thomas 
Sumter, for example, but they secured aggressive leaders only through 
the enlistment of some of the planters in the Republican cause. 

The career of Pierce Butler in this connection we have already 
noted. Another example is Wade Hampton, in many respects a 
younger prototype of Butler, a man of impetuous temper and highly 
individualistic inclinations, submitting to no party restraints. He 
usually opposed the Federalists, partly because he was a man of the 
new Piedmont planters and not of the old lowland gentry, and partly 
because of his wish to confine all government within narrow 
bounds.-* 

-- A Fezv Observations on some late Public Transactions . . . By a Member 
of the Congress on the Stamp Act . . . a)id of the tzvo first at Philadelphia, in 
1774, and 1775 (Charleston, 1797). 

^ Cf. Carolina Gazette, September 13, 1798, letter to the editor, signed "A 
Resident of the Upper Districts ". 

^ For an excellent first-hand character-sketch of Hampton see Edward Hook- 
er's Diary, in the Annual Report of the Am. Hist. Assoc, for 1896, I. 845-850. 



TJic South Carolina /uuicraiists, II. 739 

The chief (irganizer and manager of the kepubhcan machinery 
was Lharles rinckncy, cousin to the two Revolutionary veterans. 
He was a man with abihty for constructive statesmanship, as was 
shown very early in his career I)y his excellent work in the Philadel- 
phia Convention of 1787. He was, how'ever, a plunger in business 
affairs,-' and a spoilsman in party politics ; and according to tradi- 
tion in Charleston he was dishonest in the conduct of trust estates 
committed to his charge.-" He launched into Republican leadership 
partly from a dislike of Adams, but more largely, it may be con- 
jectured, from a desire for a conspicuous career. In 1795 the South 
Carolina Republicans were a leaderless party and Charles Pinckney 
was a talented politician without a following and with no principles 
in particular. He embraced the opportunity, was elected governor 
and senator, and in 1800 swung his state to Jefferson and deposed 
his enemy, Adams, from the presidency. 

The course of foreign affairs in 1796, 1797 and 1798 gave the 
Federalists a decisive tactical advantage. Harper utilized the oppor- 
tunity, according to his custom, and in August, 1798, addressed a 
pamphlet to his constituents. In it he described the offensive beha- 
vior of the French Republic toward the United States and told of 
the steps in progress for defending America against a French inva- 
sion, which he declared would probably be undertaken unless bold 
military preparations in this country should discourage it.-^ 

Sentiment in Charleston had already grown so apprehensive of 
French attack upon the port that measures suitable to an emergency 
were being taken. At a mass meeting assembled in St. Michael's 
Church on ]\Iay 5 to express public endorsement of Adams's foreign 
policy, a proposal was made and welcomed for a voluntary private 
subscription to supplement the funds to be provided by the federal 
government for the protection of Charleston.'-^ The money thus 

^ In 1 795-1 796 he had l^ought on credit three plantations of tide lands with 
the negroes on them, costing above 29,000 pounds. In 1800 he was still heavily 
in debt on this account and under some pressure from his creditors. Letter of 

C. Pinckney to the editor, Carolina Gazette, October 9, 1800. 

^ Acknowledgment for data concerning Charles Pinckney and Alexander Gillon 
is due to Dr. Barnett A. Elzas of Charleston. Since this article was sent to 
press, a valuable discussion of Charles Pinckney has been published by Theodore 

D. Jervey in the early chapters of his Robert Y Hayne and his Times. The publi- 
cation of Mr. Jervey's material necessitates no revision of the estimate of 
Pinckney here given. 

'^ A Short Account of the Principal Proceedings of Congress in the Late 
Session, and a Sketch of the State of Affairs between the United States and 
France in July 1798 ; in a Letter of Robert Goodloe Harper of South Carolina to 
One of his Constituents (Philadelphia, August, 1798). For a letter of William 
Smith on the situation (written from Portugal) see Sezcanee Reviezv, XIV. 96. 

^Carolina Gazette, May 10, 1798. 

AM. HIST. REV., VoL. .\IV.— 48. 



740 U. B. Phillips 

raised, amounting to about $100,000, was used to build a frigate ai 
Charleston in 1 798-1 799, which was christened the John Adams r^ 
Foreigners were maltreated in some localities f^ Henry W. De Saus- 
sure denounced the arrogance of France in the Fourth of July- 
address at St. Philip's Church, Charleston; and Justice Bay took 
occasion in November upon his circuit in the counties of the upper 
Piedmont to deliver political charges to the grand juries, praising 
Adams, appealing for support to the administration and denouncing 
the recalcitrant few in South Carolina who had persisted in their 
partizan antagonism. ^^ 

But the Federalists had already prepared the way for their own ■ 
downfall. The Alien and Sedition Acts of June and July, 1798, 
were an abuse of power which few Carolinians except Harper 
could defend. A sign of the reaction was the election of Charles 
Pinckney to the United States Senate in December, 1798. The pen- 
dulum of foreign relations, furthermore, swung to the Republican 
side. Charles Pinckney printed with good effect a series of well- 
vv^ritten remonstrances against the overbearing policy of Great 
Britain.^- Aside from these movements there was a lull in the local 
debate until the middle of the year 1800. Then, from June to 
November, the gazettes teemed with controversial articles, most of 
which were of Republican tone. 

The issues presented in the general campaign were little different 
from those of 1796. The Federalist programme, in fact, was in 
several features identical. The party stood upon its record and not 
upon the promise of new policies. It again nominated a South 
Carolinian, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney in this case, to run with 
Adams ; and Hamilton again tried to secure the election of Adams's 
companion candidate instead of Adams himself. 

What has been said of Thomas Pinckney, a few pages above, 
applies with slight change of detail to his brother Charles Cotes- 
worth. Their previous careers had been closely parallel ; they were 
similarly devoid of records as party men but similarly distinguished 
for integrity, public spirit and high social standing; and they were 
similarly passive when they themselves were candidates. There is 

'^Carolina Gazette, May 23, 1799. 

^"Columbian Museum (Savannah, Georgia), January 23, 1798. 

^^ Carolina Gazette, December 27, 1798. 

^- Printed first in the newspapers, then collected in a pamphlet : Three Letters, 
written and originally published under the Signature of a South Carolina Planter: 
The first on the Case of Jonathan Robbins. . . . the second on the Recent Cap- 
tures of American Vessels by British Cruisers, . . . the third on the Right of 
Expatriation, By Charles Pinckney, Esquire, Senator in Congress from South 
Carolina (Philadelphia, 1799). 



The South Carolina Fedo alists, II. 741 

•contemporary evidence that Charles Coteswortli I'incknc} '■ repelled 
as unjust to Adams a proposal from men in control of the situation 
that a compromise between the two parties he adopted on tiie same 
plan as that which had been acted upon in 1796, and that the vote of 
South Carolina be given eight for Pinckney and eight for Jefferson. 

The Federalists of the state allowed the election to go largel}- by 
default. Ralph Izard and William Smith were no longer in the 
arena, Thomas and C. C. Pinckney refrained from any electioneer- 
ing; and worst of all, Robert Goodloe Harper had notified his con- 
stituents in a letter of May 15 that he would not run for Congress 
again and would not return for further residence in South Carolina. 
The local Federalists were leaderless — a new thing in their expe- 
rience — handicapped by the record of the Alien and Sedition Acts, 
and generally powerless. The result of the contest hinged upon the 
work of one man, Charles Pinckney, whose exertions in Jefferson's 
and Burr's behalf were as marked as the inertness of the Adams and 
Pinckney men. 

Charles Pinckney wrote a full account of his labors in the emer- 
gency in letters to Jeft'erson, which have licen published in this jour- 
nal.^* The choice of electors was to be made, as usual in the state, 
by the legislature elected shortly before the presidential contest. 
Charleston sent in 1800, as usual, a majority of Federalists to the 
assembly (11 to 4), but the whole membership of the two houses 
on joint ballot promised to be very evenly divided. Charles Pinck- 
ney, instead of going to Washington for the opening of Congress, 
went to Columbia to manage the election of electors. By contesting 
the election of numerous members, and other jockeying, and by per- 
suading such members as could be persuaded, he succeeded in swing- 
ing the majority. The assembly chose Republican electors by votes 
ranging from 82 to 87 as against 63 to 69 for the Federalist candi- 
dates. Pinckney then promptly wrote Jefferson requesting him not 
to " make any arrangements for this state " before consulting him- 
self. The allusion was of course to the distribution of patronage. 

Harper on the day after Jeft'erson's inauguration wrote as a 
farewell to his late constituents a eulogy of the constructive work 
performed by the Federalist party.^° It was a splendid appreciation 
and fit to serve, as it did, as an obituary address. The gentry were 

'^American Historical Revikw, IV. 112, 113, 330. 

** Ibid., pp. 1 1 1-129. 

*' This was reprinted together with the other pamphlets herein mentioned in 
a volume: Select IVorks of Robert Goodloe Harper, vol. I., all published (Balti- 
more, 1814). 



742 U. B. Phillips 

of course shocked by the triumph of Jefferson, and could adjust 
themselves to it only by retirement in injured dignity to private life.^" 

The Jeffersonian regime soon upset the whole adjustment of 
parties and their constitutional maxims. To the Republicans of 
1801 the historical Republican doctrines were little more interesting 
than the last year's almanacs. The Northern wing of the Federalist 
party soon borrowed the arguments of strict construction in order 
to oppose the Louisiana Purchase, the embargo and the War of 
1812 ; hut the Carolina Federalists saw no occasion to follow this 
example. They accordingly did little but maintain their party ma- 
chinery, in more or less isolation from parties outside the state. At 
the beginning of 1803 the Charleston Courier was established as a 
Federalist organ^ denouncing in its editorials the French doctrines 
of the rights of man, etc., and praising conservatism and stability in 
government. ^^ The editor soon began to complain of apathy in his 
party: "Sure some spell . . . hangs over the federalists. ... If 
not for their own sakes, will they not for the salvation of their 
country rouse from the censurable sloth and fight the democrats ? "^* 
The Federalists locally would not arouse, for they had no issue for 
which to fight. The Jeffersonians had adopted the Federalist poli- 
cies, and the South Carolina Federalists were drawn more and more 
into harmony with them and out of sympathy with the filibustering 
New Englanders. The older generation continued to cling pas- 
sively to the name of Federalist. The Charleston Courier toned 
down and ceased to be a party organ. The sons of the gentry, 
William Lowndes, for example, drifted inevitably into the Repub- 
lican party,^** which was now no longer Democratic in the old doc- 
trinaire sense, but was the one party of action. As a sign of the 
times even among the older group, William Smith, having returned 
from Portugal, went over to the Republicans and in 18 10 tried to 
secure a nomination to Congress.^'' By force of the embargo and 
the British w^ar, which they supported, the South Carolina Feder- 
alists gradually ceased to contend that they had a reason for separate 
existence, and they were gradually merged among the Republicans, 
who as a party accepted leaders largely from the gentry of the 
former Federalist families. 

The Federalist party in the state was practically dead by 1812 
The old Federalist policies, however, championed as they were by 

^" Cf. Mrs. St. Julien Ravenel, Life of William Lozvndes, pp. 59 ff. 

"£. g., editorial of June 13, 1803. 

^"^ Ibid., June 17, 1803. 

^° Mrs. St. Julien Ravenel, Charleston, the Place and the People, p. 379. 

*" E. S. Thomas, Reminiscences, II. 51, 57. 



Ilie South Carolina /'[-(/ira/is/s, J 1 . 743 

the iK'W yx'iK'ralioii t)f leaders in spite of their repuihatioii of the 
jjurty name and ahi^nnient. conliinied to eonir<il the state until ahout 
1827. lUit the times again were ehanging, and men's opinions with 
them. Calhoun, Che\'es, Lowndes anil McDuffie had ^ujjported the 
national banks, I^'dcral internal improvements and the protective 
tariff in the years of emergency at the close of the War of 1812, and 
had rejoiced in the opportunity of promoting the welfare of the 
manufacturing and wool-growing regions, so long as it did not 
obviously threaten injury to the peoj^le of their own state. lUit 
when the protected Northern and Western interests fattened and 
grew strong and used their strength to force through Congress bills 
for the further heightening of duties, and when it came to a]ipear 
that the plantation states were entering a severe depression partly 
because of their previous generosity, the dominating sentiment 
among the people and the leaders in South Carolina reacted sharply 
against the so-called American system and against the constitutional 
theory which supported it. The Carolina statesmen, finding that 
the genie which they had loosed from his jar was threatening them 
and their people with oppression, resorted to the mystic (yet se- 
verely logical) formula of nullification in the hope of conjuring him 
back under control. Andrew Jackson's coercive proclamation, 
together with the Congressional force bills, established a decisive 
majority in the state in a position of resentment and reaction. The 
public appreciation of the impending crisis over negro slavery in the 
following period operated to make this attitude permanent. The 
Federalist policies w^ere now not appreciably less dead in the state 
than was the old Federalist party organization. 

Ulrich B. Phillips. 



[Reprinted froin'liiE American IIiviokicai. Revikw. Vol. XIV.. No. 4. July, 1909.] 



2. South Carolina Federalist Correspondence, ijSg-ijQJ 
The following letters, mainly written by William Smith to 
Gabriel ^lanigault and Ralph Izard, are printed from the manu- 
scripts in the possession of Mrs. Hawkins Jenkins. Wantoot Planta- 
tion (Pinopolis), St. John's, Berkeley, South Carolina. 

Ulrich B. Phillips. 

William Smith to Gabrifx Manigault. 

New York June 7, 1789. 
Dear Sir: 

Much harmony, politeness and good humor have hitherto pre- 
vailed in both houses— our debates are conducted with a moderation and 
abilitv extremely unusual in so large a body— consisting of men under 
the influence of such jarring interests coming from such different coun- 
tries and climates and accustomed to such different manners. How 
long this delightful accommodation will continue is uncertain: I sin- 
cerelv wish I shall never see it interrupted . . . 



']']'] Documents 

R. has given me battle on the plains of N. Y. after suffering a 
defeat at Charleston ; I have fortunately given him as complete an 
overthrow here as I did there/ and I hope he will let me alone. 

Ralph Izard to Edward Rutledge. 

New York 26th Sept. 1789. 
Dear Sir: 

I am just returned from the Senate where the following Officers 
have been approved of — Mr. Jay Chief Justice : Judges of the Supreme 
Court J. Rutledge, Cushing, Wilson, Harrison, and Blair. Edmund 
Randolph Attorney General, Major Pinckney^ is appointed District 
Judge for South Carolina. The Judges both of the Supreme Court and 
the District Courts are chosen from among the most eminent and dis- 
tinguished characters in America, and I do not believe that any Judi- 
ciary in the world is better filled. The President asked me before the 
nominations were made, whether I thought your Brother John, Genl. 
Pinckney," or yourself would accept of a Judge in the Supreme Court. 
I told him that I was not authorized to say you would not, but inti- 
mated that the office of Chief Justice would be most suitable to either 
of you: That however was engaged. Mr. Jay's Office has this day been 
filled by Mr. Jefferson, who is expected here soon from France. The 
home Department is added to it, and the name of the office changed. 
Mr. Jefferson is called Secretary of State. I hope it may suit your 
Brother to accept, if it should be only for two or three years; as it 
is of the first importance that the Judiciary should be highly respectable. 
The Office of District Judge I hope will be agreeable to Major Pinckney. 
If either of them should refuse to accept, let me know of it by the first 
opportunity, and tell me whom you wish to be appointed that will accept. 
The President will not nominate any but the most eminent: and if none 
in South Carolina of that description will accept, he will be obliged to 
have recourse to some other state. I write this letter in a hurry hoping 
that it may be in time to go by Capt. Freneau. Your son is above stains 
drinking tea with the Ladies. I never saw him look so well. He is not 
absolutely fat; but as near it as you would wish him to be. 

I am Dear Sir 

Your most ob'. Servt. 
Ra . . . Izard. 

Ralph Izard to Edward Rutledge. 

New York December 29th 1789. 
Dear Sir 

I have already written to you by this opportunity. Capt. Motley's 
being detained, by contrary winds and bad weather gives me an oppor- 
tunity of again urging you to procure and send me as soon as possible 
the sentiments of the members of the Legislature upon the subject of 
the adoption of our state debt by Congress. If a vote in favor of the 
measure could be obtained, it would put it in my power to speak with 

^ The allusion is to David Ramsay's unsuccessful contest of Smith's election 
to Congress. 

^/. e., Thomas Pinckney. 

' Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. 



Son/h Cixrolina Fcdcra/isl Concspoidoicc 778 

greater cnnfidoiice tlian by l)eiiiL,^ possessed sinii)Iy of tlie opinions of 
intlividuals. I am fully persuaded that it would be of infinite advan- 
tage to our State if the measure should be adopted. I have written to 
Mr. John Hunter, the Member from Little River District on the subject. 
He is a man of whom I think well ; perhaps it may be useful for you 
to confer with him. When I consider the great loss of time which for 
several years we have experienced in debating about indents, and many 
other circumstances which must occur to you, I do not think it possible 
that you should differ with me on this subject. I am extremely sorry 
however to find that my Colleague* continues to do so, and I am told 
that some of our members in the House of Representatives are in senti- 
ment with him. Congress will meet in a few days; but I think the 
business I have mentioned to you will not be decided until I receive 
an answer to this letter. Henry is well, is now with me; has this 
morning received your letter by Capt. Elliot, and says that he inlcndi 
writing to you by him next week. This will probably find you at 
Columbia. I hope most sincerely that I may not be mistaken in thinking 
it will not be for the happiness of the people at large that the Legis- 
lature should continue to sit there. Remember me to all friends, and 
believe me 

sincerely "\'ours etc 

Ra . . . TZARD. 

'' William Smith to Gabriel Manigault. 

New York March 26, 1790, 
Dear Manigault, 

I am not surprised at your anxiety on the question respecting the 
assumption of the State debts; we are no less agitated about it and are 
apprehensive of the issue, tho we think it must finally take place; the 
opposition to it is considerable and the arrival of the Xorth Carolina 
Members an inauspicious event, as they are expected to be against it. 
Two of them have taken their seats — one is very warmly opposed to it 
and the other doubtful — two others are daily expected. The Committee 
of the whole have agreed to it by a majority of five but should all the 
Xorth Carolina members vote against us, the result will perhaps be 
fatal. 

Some memorials from the Quakers and the Penylv". Society for 
the abolition of Slavery which were presented to our House have thrown 
us into a flame which is now fortunately extinguished after a con- 
siderable loss of time — two unmeaning resolutions have been passed to 
gratify the memorialists, (W'ho are much displeased with them by the 
bye) and we obtained an explicit declaration that Congress have no 
power to interfere with the emancipation of slaves. The Quakers are 
gone home much discontented and the House has been censured by the 
public for taking up the business. 

f 

William Smith to Gabriel Manigault. 

New York, Augt. 3, 1790. 
C^ear Manigault, 

I have pleasure in congratulating you on the Assumption, a meas- 

' Pierce Butler. 



779 Documents 

ure not only beneficial to the U. S. and to So. Car. particularly, but to 
yourself personally, a circumstance which adds much to the satisfaction 
I have felt. Although we have not assumed to the full amount of each 
debt and have not funded the Debt at a full six per cent, yet, consider- 
ing the very violent opposition to the measure we must be satisfied for 
the present with what has been done : at the next session in December 
we shall probably do more. 

We shall adjourn in the course of a few days, as soon as we have 
past a Bill raising a revenue for the continental debt; this is intended 
to be by an addition to the impost; the Excise will be reserved for the 
State debts, the Interest on which will commence ist Jany 1792, — a year 
after the other. 

William Smith to Gabriel Manigault. 

Philad^. Dec. 19, 1790. 
Dear Manigault, 

. . . The punctuality of the members has been such that we were 
within one of forming a quorum of both houses on the first day, a 
circumstance well worthy of note. We have today got over all prepara- 
tory ceremonies and shall now go seriously to work. I cannot fore- 
tell whether the Campaign will be a bloody one or not — it has opened 
with ominous circumstances; by taking the field at a season when other 
combatants go into winter quarters. Many of our Champions have 
from the combined inconveniences of tempestuous weather and bad 
roads met with terrible disasters in repairing to the Camp. Burke was 
shipwrecked off the Capes; Jackson and Mathews with great difficulty 
landed at Cape May and travelled 160 miles in a wagon to the City. 
Burke got here in the same way. Gerry and Partridge were overset in 
the stage; the first had his head broke and made his Entree with an 
enormous black patch; the other had his ribs sadly bruised and was 
unable to stir for some days. Tucker had a dreadful passage of 16 days 
with perpetual storms. I wish these little contretems may not sour their 
tempers and be inauspicious to our proceedings. Secretary Hamilton 
made his report this morning on the further support of public credit. 
He recommends an Excise as the most eligible mode of funding the 
State Debts ; we are to consider this report Monday next. The Enemies 
to the Assumption will of course oppose this scheme and avail them- 
selves of the Terrors of the Excise to make it obnoxious : but I believe 
we may be safe in relying on this fund; for the faith of the national 
Legislaf. is pledged for the pay*, of the interest of the State debts, and 
the Excise will be found on discussion to be the only source to which 
we can resort. 

George Cabot to Ralph Izard (at Hartford, Connecticut). 

Brookline Aug^ 19th 1794. 
My dear friend 

I was rejoiced to read in your own hand writing that you and Mrs. 
Izard are well and happy. 

I am not so good a farmer as you wish me to be but am agreeably 
employed and shall improve my agricultural talents in good time. 

The newspapers will show you that in this part of the country our 



South Caro/iiia Inderal ist Corrcspoidoue 780 

political character throws worse ami that the combination of ImioIs with 
Knaves must eventually be too powerful for the friends of genuine 
liberty — jacobin principles are congenial with the feelings of the weak 
and the wicked, but the defence of order and good government without 
which there can be no equal liberty, requires capacity, integrity and the 
sacrifice of personal ease. — You will perceive readily that I am as much 
out of humour as ever. I am so desponding that I cannot be useful and 
if it were not for a strong sense of obligation to others I shou'd cer- 
tainly resign my public employment. 

1 look forward however with salisfactii-n to the i)eriod of my ser- 
vice and with some secret hopes that I may without impropriety end it 
in another session. Mrs. Cabot requires me to assure you and Mrs. 
Izard of her most affectionate sentiments toward your family in which 
I pray you to unite your sincere 

and faithful friend 
George Cabot, 

William Smith to Ralimi Izakd.'' 

PiiiLAD. May i8th,'96. 
Dear Sir: 

The Senate have resolved not to admit the State of Tennessee at 
present ; but to lay out the Territory into a State by act of Congress 
and order the Census to be taken by federal Authority, the return to 
be made to the President, who will cause a new Convention to be held 
and other proceeds'*, preparatory to their admittance at the next session. 
Langdon was sent for on that account, and I believe to assist at a cau- 
cus about Vice President: it seems the party are at a stand on that 
point: the persons in nomination are Burr, Langdon, Butler and Chan'". 
Livingston ; the latter is said to stand highest having gained much repu- 
tation in Virginia by Cato against the Treaty. Butler, they say, they 
have no objection to except being a Southern man and as Jefferson is 
to be President, it won't do: — Burr, thev think unsettled in his politics 
and are afraid he will go over to the other side : Langdon has no in- 
fluence etc. 

Our side are also unsettled. Some think that the run will be for 
Adams or Jefferson as President and as they will be the two highest, and 
neither will serve as \'ice P. there will be no J'Icc P.: this will prob- 
ably be the issue. The publication you sent me is a paltry performance. 
I showed it to King who laughed at it: he has given me some extracts 
from Major Pinckncy's correspond, on the subject, which I will com- 
municate to you when we meet. 

IMajor P. has written me a Letter from London, introducing M"", 
Lister in warm terms, which he seems to merit, 

I called on M''. Boyd yesterday about the pills: he remembers you 
and the kind of pills you want ; they shall be sent by the first opport''. 

I have sett-^. with M-". Hill and M-". Vaughan. 

Present my affc^ respects to M""^. Izard and believe me, 
Dear Sir 

with aff and resp*. 
yours etc 

Wm. Smith 

' Senator Izard was Smith's father-in-law. 



781 Dociuneiits 

I must rescue one Virginian Hancock, from your strictures: He has 
l)ehaved nobly, in resisting so formid'^'. a phalanx: Grove too deserves 
great credit. 

William Smith to Ralph Izard. 

Philad. Nov. 3, 96. 
Dear Sir, 

Since my last, Mr. Adet has delivered a note to the Secretary of 
State, which with the Secretary's reply I send you by this post. 
Every circumstance accompanying the Note, convinces us that it is 
altogether designed as an electioneering manoeuvre ; the govern', and 
every respectable character viewed it in that light. 

The proceeding is so barefaced and such an outrageous and open 
interference in our most important election that it disgusts every re- 
flecting and independ^ man and will I trust have an effect directly 
the reverse of that wch is so palpably intended. The note was dated 
the 27"^^. Thursday, and was deliv"^. to the Sec^. of State either that 
day or the day following; the President was expected here on Monday 
(31^'.) ; but before he could receive it from the Secretary, Adet sent 
it to Bache to be printed, and it appeared in his infamous paper on the 
Monday morning before the President arrived, wch was in the after- 
noon, and therefore before he saw it, unless he met Bache's paper on 
the road, when he must have had the first view of the note in that paper. 
This morning Pinckney's'' answer appeared and has given much satis- 
faction ; the circumstances he mentions of the Directory having de- 
clared to Monroe that there was no Decree affecting our commerce on 
the 28'^. Aug^ and Adet's threatening us with this Decree dated 2^. 
July, is a corroborating circumstance to prove the design of alarming 
the People at this crisis. Tho the President was expected so soon, he 
could not have the decency to wait his arrival, but sent his note to be 
published, least it might not operate enough before the election; by 
publishing it on Monday, it was just in time to influence the Election 
in this State, which takes place tomorrow. The day on which it came 
out in Bache's paper, appeared in that paper a great display of the 
force of France, certainly calculated to have an effect with the note: 
two days after, came a piece, threat^, us with war with France, unless 
we elect a President, who will be agreeable to that nation : These are 
among the abominable artifices practised to secure french election in 
this State and so great have been the exertions employed, such the 
Lies spread all thro the country against M"". A. that I apprehend the 
antif. ticket will prevail, in wch case Jeff°. will have 15 votes in this 
State: libels have been circulated all thro the State asserting that A. 
has declared himself for a King; in some he is called King Adams, 
in others they state the question to be, whether we wish to have a 
King or a President, etc. Still as the votes will probably be unanimJ'. 
for A. in the East". States New York and Jersey and Delaware and 
gener^. in Maryland, if he has a few votes in the Southern States, 
he will be elected : the greatest exertions are therefore necessary ; 
one or two votes in S. C. may save the election. 

I send you a pamphlet containing the Letters of Phocion, under 

" Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. 



South Caro/iua l-'cderalist Correspondence 782 

another titk-: our triciuls Iktc Iiavc had tlu'iii i)rinU'(l, willi an oxpi-cta- 
tion that llicv will do good, and they will be circulated thro the South- 
ern States. Ijefore the Election. 

Every man must lend his aid to save the Country at this important 
juncture: I hope you have decided to go to Columbia. 

B. Smith writes me from No. Car. that he hopes A. will have some 
votes in that State; if so I think we shall be saved; he informs me 
that he has heard from \\. Rutledge, who, if an elector, will no\ vote 
for A. I suspect he is tampering with my Cousin, but he w^on't suc- 
ceed with him. 

Steele, the Comptroller, is very decidedly with us, and very useful 
in circulating information, and writing to his friends. 

I wrote you by Story Jun"". a few days ago. Butler and liis family 
are gone with Story Sen"". I long to hear of his projects in S.C. 

Remem^ me. if you please. affcc>'. to all friends, 
and believe ine 

D--. Sir 

With sincere esteem 
Yours etc 
Wm Smith. 



Robert Goouloe Hakper to Ralph Izard (at Charleston, South Carolina). 

Raleigh No. Carolina, Xov. 4th 1796. 
Dear Sir, 

I take the liberty of addressing you on some subjects the impor- 
tance of which will apologize for the trouble I shall give you. 

The first is the election of President. I find the people in our 
upper Country generally disposed in favor of Jefferson. 'Tis nearly 
the same case here ; even in a greater degree. M"". Adams may prob- 
ably get some votes in each State, but the number will be small, for 
the' lower country of our State, with some few exceptions, are more 
warm on Jefferson's subject than the upper. Should the Pennsyl- 
vania Election for Electors succeed, Adams will outpoll Jefferson; 
otherwise he will most probably be far behind. 

As to Pinckney,' the case is entirely different. He, I am well as- 
sured, will receive a vote from every elector, or nearly every one, in 
the three southern states; and in Virginia also I have reason to believe 
he will meet with considerable support. He, I think is our sheet anchor. 
It is not Pinckney or Adams with us, but Pinckney or Jefferson. 

The great point is to prevail on Pinckney to stand. Every effort 
will be used by his pretended friends, and by Ned Rutledge among the 
rest, to persuade him not to let his name be run. They will tell him 
that he ought not to act as vice President, that he is intended to be 
made a tool of. by people who will deceive him. That he is brought 
forward to divide the votes of the southern states, and that the east- 
ern people, when it comes to the truth will not support him. U he 
should not arrive before the election. Xed Rutledge will give out that 
his friend ]Major Pinckney, in wdiose most intimate confidence he will 
declare himself to be, will not consent to serve as vice-President. By 
these means if possible, under tlie mask of friendship, they will pre- 

' Thomas Pinckney. 



"jS;^ Documents 

vent him from being voted for. But Major Pinckney may be assured, 
I speak from the most certain knowledge, that the intention of bring- 
ing him forward was to make him President, and that he will be sup- 
ported with that view. I do not say that the eastern people would 
prefer him to M"". Adams; but they infinitely prefer him to Jefferson, 
and they support him because it gives them an additional chance to 
exclude Jefferson, and to get a man whom they can trust. With the 
very same views against Adams is Pinckney supported by many of 
Jefferson's warmest friends; and there are not wanting many who 
prefer him to either. Upon the whole I have no doubt of his being 
elected, if it should not be prevented by himself or those who call 
themselves his friends. The great point is to prevail on him to stand. 

I trust these ideas sir to your discretion. You may make any such 
use of them as you think proper. You know the persons who ought 
to be applied to on this subject. Gen'. Pinckney's^ absence is a great 
loss; but there are others who may be usefully addressed. I do not 
know how DeSaussure stands respecting Jefferson ; indeed it is very 
difficult to know how he stands on any subject; but if he should enter 
into our views, there is no man in the state whom you may consult to 
more advantage. He is intimate with the leading men of all sides, 
and knows how to address them in the most effectual manner. He 
stands very high in the confidence of several. 

The next subject is the choice of a governor and senator for our 
state. While I was in the upper country I was told that Butler" in- 
tended to resign and offer as governor and that Hunter was to supply 
his place in the senate. I need not tell you the importance of defeat- 
ing this scheme; particularly the latter part of it, and it can only be 
defeated by bringing forward reputable and popular candidates in 
opposition. Butler has lost ground in the upper country,' but is still 
strong; particularly with the members of the Legislature. He will 
also meet with no inconsiderable support from below. I know no man 
who could oppose him with success but Washington'" or John Ewing 
Calhoun. The upper country people, I believe, would vote for Wash- 
ington, many of them at least, in preference to Butler, and I believe 
Calhoun would get more votes below. I should however think Wash- 
ington a safer candidate; but De Saussure, if he will, can give you 
a much better judgement on this subject. There is also a young man 
of the name of Mitchell, William B. Mitchell, who from his familiar 
acquaintance among the members may be usefully consulted. 

As to Hunter, should he offer, I know no-body who can so well 
oppose him as D"". Ramsay." There is an objection to him among 
the planters, and but one. That perhaps may be got over. It is his 
principles respecting slavery. He has of late become a considerable 
slave-holder in Georgia, which I suppose will be a sufficient security. 
At any rate he will unite the middle country, and the Charleston inter- 
est, and will receive a number of votes from above. His offering would 
hold Ephraim Ramsay in check, who is the ablest most artful and most 
dangerous of all the supporters of antifederalism in South Carolina. 

* Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. 

^ Pierce Butler, then Congressman. 

" General William A. Washington, a prominent planter. 

'' David B. Ramsay. 



Sou/// Carolina Federalist Correspondeiiee 7<S4 

Charles rinoknoy will probably otlVr for oiu- i)iacc' or tin- other. 
I need not say that he is as nuieh to be avoided as either of the others. 
I would rather see him governor than senator, and should jjrefer him 
to Butler in the former capaeity. It ])erhaps might be well enough 
to make him governor," bad as he would be, to prevent him from 
becoming senator. The greatest danger in his offering as senator 
would be in the i)robability of its i)reventing Ramsay from coming for- 
ward, or if he should offer, affording a rallying point to the opposition 
which he would be likely to receive from the planters below. 

There is general Anderson in the back Country, who stands high 
there, and might be a fit man perhaps to oi)i)ose to Butler as governor. 
He would by no means do for senator; but in the former station he 
is far less objectionable than either Butler or Pinckncy. If Pickens'* 
can be prevailed on to offer there is certainty of his success. Perhaps 
Robert Barnwell might be persuaded to offer as senator. If so. his 
election I think would be certain. 

These ideas sir have appeared to me to be of importance. Should 
you consider them in the same light, you will excuse the trouble I have 
given you in communicating them, and accept the sincere respect with 
which I have the honor to be 

Your very ob^ ser^ 

Ror: G: Harper. 



William Smith to Ralph Izard (at Charleston, South Carolina). 

PiiiLAD. Nov. 8, 96. 
Dear Sir 

Since my last, the Election for Electors has taken place in this 
State: in the City and County, the antifederal Ticket has unfortimately 
prevailed by a very large majority; in the other counties from which 
we have heard, the federal Ticket is considerably ahead, but we have 
to apprehend a majority against us in the Western Counties, so that 
upon the wdiole, the issue is very doubtful and the chances rather against 
us. In this case there will be 15 votes for Jeff", in this State, which 
will decide the election unless we liave a respectable support in the 
Southern States. 

The causes which have produced this success of the Jacobins in 
this City and environs as as disgusting as the thing itself. One was 
the infamous calumny propogated with wonderful industry, that Mr. 
Adams w^as for a King, and accordingly on the election ground the 
Mob w^ere shouting " Jefferson and no king ". Another was a momen- 
tary alarm excited among the Quakers, who have been heretofore 
right, by Adet's threats: they conceived that France was about to de- 
clare war against us and that Jeff", would conciliate the affections of 
that nation ; and thus a scandalous manoeuvre, evidently designed to 
influence the election has had its effect; and thus, after the federal 
party have by great wisdom and exertions preserved peace with Eng- 
land, they are now to be kicked aside as useless, and their adversaries 
brought in to keep peace \vith France, and those who created the 
Constitution and produced the prosperity the Nation now enjoys are 

"Charles Pinckney w^s in fact elected governor in 1796. 
"General Andrew Pickens, Congressman, 1 793-1 795- 



785 Documents 

to be trampled under foot by the Enemies of the Constit". and of the 
national prosp^. 

Another cause which I hope will damn Jeff", in the Southern States 
•operated strongly with many of the Quakers; that is, his wishes for 
emancipation. French influence never appeared so open and unmasked 
as at this city election — French flags, french cockades were displayed 
by the Jefferson party and there is no doubt that french money was 
not spared. Public houses were kept open. At Kensington the mob 
would suffer no person to vote who had not a french cockade in his 
hat. In the northern liberties, there were many hundred votes given 
more than at any former election all of which are supposed to tje 
illegal. In short there never was so barefaced and disgraceful an in- 
terference of a foreign power in any free country. 

McKean leads the antifederal ticket. You remem''. his zeal for 
Adams at the last election, and yet to serve the vile purposes of a 
party, the old wretch submits to prostitute his vote, having promised 
to vote for Jeff°. tho he is known in his heart, to prefer Adams's 
politics. — Burr is here — he has been at Boston and is probably going 
to the southward — he is to be run on the antifederal ticket with Jeff", 
in some of the states; tho I believe the party are not perfectly agreed 
among themselves as to the Vice Preside — the plan of the leading men, 
I am told, is to vote for Jefferson and any other man, except Adams 
and Pinckney, and instructions have been issued to that effect ; they 
forbid the voting for P. least he sh'^. get in as President; they think 
that Ad. may get in as V. P. and they are sure he would resign, which 
would furnish them with materials of abuse for his hauteur, in despis- 
ing a station in which the people have placed him. Burr is likely how- 
ever to unite most of the antif. votes — a charming character to be 
sure for V. President ! so unpopular in his own state that he can't 
even get a seat in the State Legislature — sued here for 5,000 doll, 
at the Bank and in N. Y. for £12,000 Sterle. for a land speculation. 
Old Robinson of Vermont has resigned and Tichenor, a federalist, 
elected. Buck re-elected in that state unanim^. and Lyon expected to 
succeed my namesake, so that the Green Mountains will be represented 
very properly by a Buck and a Lion. Otis will succeed Ames. 

I suppose you have read Adet's note and Pickering's reply — Adet 
is preparing a rejoinder which will appear in a few days : all this is 
well understood — and his success in this City will doubtless encourage 
Jiim to persevere. 

Harper, I find is reelected by a great majority, and I hear that J. 
Rutledge is elected. Harper writes Bingham that he thinks Adams 
will have three votes in So. Car. Could it not be intimated to E. 
Rutledge that if Jeff", gets any votes in our State, he will outvote 
Pinckney and therefore those who wish P — y's election as President 
■ought not to vote for Jeff". This idea may induce him to withdraw 
his support from J. even tho he sh''. not support A. and wo"^. favor 
■our cause. 

I hope the family are all well — remember me to them 
and believe me Dear Sir with sincere Esteem 

Yours respec^. 

Wm. Smith. 



Soit/Ii Carol ilia Fcdoalist Coyrcspoiidone 786 

William Smith lu Kalimi Izaud. 

I'll 11. AD. May 23, 97. 
Dear Sir 

The newspapers will ac(|iiaiiU you of the subjects of discussion 
which arose out of the reported answer to the address. It was a 
fortunate thing that Rutledge" was one of the select committee; wc 
strongly suspect that the Speaker by placing him there counted on him 
as being on the other side. Vcnablc was chairman and had Rutledge 
been wrong, the draft V. had prepared would have been reported : this 
draft was a most pusillanimous crouching thing, hoping every thing 
from further negotiations. We had a large meeting after the com^^. 
was formed, at which were present Griswold, Rutledge and Kittcra, 
composing a majority of the com""'", and there we agreed on the sketch 
of a draft, which (iriswold prejjared and was agreed to in the com«^ 
and reported. Nicholas's amend', will. 1 think, be lost, but I fear there 
will be some change in the reported answer, which will not improve it. 
Coit has proposed some conciliatory amendm'**., which the federal party 
generally dislike, and wdiich the other parly will prefer to the report. 
His amend'**, are i. to express a wish " that the F. Rep. may stand 
on grounds as favorable as any other nations in their relations to 
the U. S. " 2. to change the expression of indignation at the rejec- 
tion of our minister, into one of surprise and regret. 3*^. to state the 
attempts of France to wound our rights and to separate the people 
from the govern' hypothetically, " should such attempts be made — '" 
" if such sentiments are entertained ". I am apprehensive the first of 
these amend'^. will be agreed to — there is a pretty general opinion that 
we can have no great objection to placing France on the same footing 
as Eng., but we conceive that inserting these words will be interfering 
with the Executive — will be an oblique censure on their past conduct, 
will be an admission that I'Vance has a right to this concession, and 
be throwing out of view any hope of compensation for spoliations. 

Every manoeuvre was practised to seduce Rutledge and bring him 
over on the com^^ to vote for Venable's draft, but he stood out and 
was decidedly for a high-toned report. He has twice spoken in the 
house against Nicholas's amend'. — his last speech yesterday was a very 
good one ; it was argumentative, ingenious and sarcastic and had much 
effect; he delivered himself with ease, fluency and grace: he has very 
much the manner of his Uncle Edward; the federal party and the 
audience were highly pleased and the french faction prodigiously morti- 
fied, except at one part of his speech (which might as well have been 
omitted) respecting the British Treaty. We have several new members, 
young and genteel men, all federal and handsome speakers, Otis, Dennis 
(the successor of ^lurray) Bayard the Delaware member, and Rut- 
ledge. Otis and Bayard are very powerful and Dennis, tho' very 
young very well informed and decided. Evans, successor of Page, is 
a very federal and respectable man; he proposed rather a foolish 
amend', at the outset, from a spirit of conciliation but he will be gen- 
erally right. Old Morgan, in lieu of Rutherford, is very firm in sup- 
port of gov'. 

Some of the Jacobins are rather softened, but the leaders are as 
fierce and obstinate as ever. Giles. Gallatin. Nicholas. Livingston. 

'* John Rutledge the younger, a new member from South Carolina. 



7^7 Documents 

Swanwick and Sam Smith have disgraced the country by their speeches ; 
Giles and Livingston were hours in apologizing for France and abusing 
the govern', of this country and the British Treaty; but Sam S. who 
spoke yesterday, surpassed them all; his whole speech consisted of 
invectives against British spoliations and justification of France: Har- 
per/' who is the most decided and bitter enemy of the French, gave 
his a severe dressing and made a very able speech; before he had how- 
ever completed his remarks, the Speaker was taken ill and the house 
adjourned; Harper will continue tomorrow; he sat with me an hour 
last night and from his conversation, he appears full charged. He is 
a very bold speaker and is very industrious ; he will be a very important 
character in that house in a short time. Gallatin was more decent than 
usual and his speech more amcrican that that of any of the others. 

My namesake Major W. Smith is arrived; he looks like a thin 
puritanical Methodist, is rather an elderly man and appears to be a 
great simpleton. He lodges with Rutledge and Hunter. On his arrival 
he expressed himself to Rutledge satisfied with the report of the Com«^ 
but Sumter'' got him seated in the house between him and Milledge, 
and they together with Baldwin have been debauching him. Harper 
had him to dinner two days ago, together with Rutledge, Bayard, Otis 
and myself: we tried to infuse good opinions into him, but he appears 
to be composed of materials very unpromising. 

It is unfortunate that so much time should be spent in debating 
the answer; but it was unavoidable; all this debate must have come 
out during the session and it was perhaps better to have it at the begin- 
ning and disencumber the measures, which will be proposed, of this 
extraneous matter. When this question is settled, which will prob- 
ably be tomorrow, we shall immed^. proceed to the measures necessary 
for defence. Opinions are not made up; the greatest objection seems 
to lie against allowing the merchant ships to be armed ; the Jacobins 
will object to everything like defence, for fear of irritating"; but I 
presume they will be in the minority: fortifications, completing the 
Frigates, purchasing and fitting out armed vessels, as convoys, pro- 
curing arms and ammunition are the most likely to succeed. Gen. 
Pinckney will be appointed as sole Envoy or Embass. Extr^. — perhaps 
some important character sent as Secr^. of the Embassy. The party 
have relinquished their hopes of Madison: they found a general appro- 
bation of Pinckney's conduct and understood that the President's mind 
was made up; after intimate, various objections against him they now 
make a merit of necessity and join in applause. 

Jefiferson's letter is uncontradicted; I had some conversat°. with 
Harper about it last night, and he says he will introduce the subject 
in his speech tomorrow. Jefiferson lodges at Francis's hotel with a 
knot of Jacobins, Baldwin, Sumter, Varnum, Brown, Skinner (suc- 
cessor of Sedgewick) they have unluckily got Henry amongst them, 
and I much fear will corrupt him, as he is a weak man and has given 
already a wrong vote in the Senate. 

There has been some objection in the Senate to the President's 
nomination of Mr. Adams to Berlin, only on the score of extending 
foreign relations. The appointment will however take place, and the 

" Robert Goodloe Harper, of South Carolina, 
^^ General Thomas Sumter, of South Carolina. 

AM. HIST. REV., VOL. XIV. — ? I . 



Soul/i Caro/ina Federalist Corrcspoiidoice 7 go- 

previous question carried iS to 11— tlien tlie iKnn". ai^reed to. Day 
before yesterday the nomination was made of < len. I'inckney, Chief 
Justice Dana of Massac"", and ( ien. Marsliall of \'irj.,dnia (the cele- 
brated lawyer) as envoys Extr>'. and Min. i'len. to I'Vance. I had 
heard of this [project] several days ago and objected to it and in 
conseq®. of my objection [the] nominations were postponed two davs 
and the subject reconsidered by the l'resi[dent] and council; but there 
were reasons for it too powerful in their opinions to change th[e p]!an 
— I dislike it — however, it is done. I immed^'. took measures to satisfy 
Rutledge and he is perfectly satisfied: [ ] has shown much ill humour 
and endeav**. to prejudice Rut. but I was before hand. G'. Pinckney 
is at the head of the commission and will I hope be pleased with the 
arrangement. 

Yesterday mo^'s. I called on Porcupine and paid him a visit; he 
was much delighted with the anecilote respecting St. Peter; he laughed 
very heartily; I read him your remarks about Webster; he acquiesces 
in the propriety. I dined yesterday WMth the President ; he was easy 
and cheerful; suffic^'. familiar without loosing his dignity; Mrs. Adams 
conducted herself with the greatest propriety. The dinner was genteel, 
without profusion ; the wine rather mediocre. In the evening I related 
the anecdote about St. Peter. They were much pleased with it. Porcu- 
pine is a great favorite at Court. 

I shall write again soon. Tell Harry that his friend (\jchran is a 
very clever fellow; he has not spoke yet, but his opinions arc very 
sound. 

I hope the children are getting well from the hooping cough. Prav^ 
give my love to them. 

Very respec^. Yours etc 

W.M. Smith. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 418 443 9 



HoUinger Corp. 
pH83 



